We thrashed our balls off at work, to try to get away early and it actually worked.
I was sat in the car at 3.05 and tuned into WM as I pulled away, only to find myself listening to the Albion game.
Bloody hell.

Then I got into the house at about 3.50 and immediately searched around to see if I could see the game, while listening on AVTV.

Yeah, I got a picture, but it was foreign and at least two minutes delayed.
Trust me, you can’t watch a game like this, so I had to choose and went with the AVTV live commentary.
Which reminds me, if anyone from the club happens to read this, why is AVTV so crap?
I consistently struggle to get the commentary in any reasonable time and it needs sorting.

So basically, I don’t know what went on in the first half, apart from Green hit the post with a flying header, Bent should have had a stonewall penalty and most importantly, Chester had scored from a Lansbury corner.

The part I actually saw/watched then, was very worrying and as per usual, we sank back deeper and deeper and basically started to panic. AGAIN.
But I’ll move onto that shortly.

I see Steve McClaren has got the hump because he can’t believe we won.
Well sorry, Steve, but I can.
We put the ball in the net and you never, it’s as simple as that.
As I said in the preview, it’s all about goals, which in fairness I expected them to get.

Going back to how we played, it was backs to the wall stuff and I can’t say I’m impressed.
Derby nudged 70% possession, which is desperately disappointing at home.
But Bruce called it right in saying that they never got a shot off until the 75th minute.
I’ve said before, that while possession is good, it means nowt if you aren’t doing anything with it.
Arsenal spring to mind here.

So what am I saying?
Well, we quite simply needed a win and 3 points.
I’m not convinced it’ll do as much for our confidence against Bristol City (who I note went 2 up and ended up with a draw at Newcastle) as some of us would like.
We still play far too defensively overall, for my liking.
But maybe it was needed?
I can see the arguments that say we shouldn’t be like this and Bruce is rubbish because that’s how he plays.
But I feel that when I expected us to lose and we actually won, with a clean sheet too, this is a great result.

I was all doom and gloom in the preview, because I couldn’t see that the team has the fight about it to get us out of trouble.
Well, you can call the Derby game lucky or whatever you like, but from every report I’ve read about it, there’s no way you can say the team weren’t trying.
And that’s very encouraging in itself.

We’ve got the quality.
And if they can show some fight, then relegation isn’t a problem.
And as I said, they showed it yesterday, just as we’re about as low as it gets.

It bodes well, but we have to maintain it, against Bristol and Rotherham.
Get six points there and it’s happy days again, isn’t it?
Well ok, it isn’t really, but it’s more about breathing room.

By the way, I didn’t have the heart to give my Derby mate too much stick.
He was raving about them a few weeks ago, but now thinks they’re rubbish for having lost to us.

It’s not just us Villa fans who are fickle.
It’s the name of the game though, isn’t it?